concentration of poor people? Why does half of the country’s population live below the poverty line? Nigeria scores below the sub-Saharan average on several socioeconomic indicators, including gross national income (GNI) per capita (US$620 in 2006), infant mortality, access to an improved water supply and life expectancy. Nigeria is unlikely to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Similarly, the country is having difficulty in delivering social services, such as potable water and energy, and has been unable to manage rapid and uncontrolled urbanisation, or provide effective intraurban and interurban transportation. Further, with a Gini Index of 50.6, Nigeria is among the top 20 countries in the world with the widest gap between the rich and poor. Corruption and money laundering 147. There is virtual agreement among observers that corruption – both political and economic – primarily explains poverty in Nigeria. Corruption has held back economic growth and development, and has frustrated incentives to align budgetary allocations with development priorities. Former World Bank president, Paul Wolfowitz, noted that Nigeria has lost about US$300 billion to corruption in the last four decades. The secretariat of the influential Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria agrees, noting that corruption has become a way of life, especially in government and business cicles. It is responsible in large measure for the broken promises, the dashed hopes and the shallow dreams that have characterised the lives of most Nigerians in the past few decades. Transparency International’s 2006 Corruption Perception Index ranked Nigeria more corrupt than 37 out of the 45 African countries for which relevant data was available. Globally, Nigeria ranked 142nd out of 164 countries. Without the eradication of corruption, Nigerians will continue to be poor and the country will not meet its target of being one of the 20 top global economies by 2020. Dependency on oil and conflicts over resources 148. While federalism is lauded for the survival of the Nigerian nation-state, the overreliance on oil and, by extension, dependency on the centre pose challenges for the federation. Pronounced regional and economic disparities and resource struggles have led to growing micronationalistic sentiments and politics of brinkmanship. The conflict in the Niger Delta is a case in point and will continue to define Nigeria’s resource struggles while testing the very core of federalism. Ineffective implementation of policies and laws 149. 60 Ineffective implementation of policies and laws, and policy reversals, poses serious challenges to governance. For example, Nigeria has not lived up to its obligations under the several international conventions that have been signed and ratified by the country. Connected to this is the low capacity of institutions to meet their statutory mandates. This is a question of skills and attitudes.